


civil conversations

by okayantigone



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic, Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied Cannibalism, Implied Murder, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Spousal Abuse, Therapy, implied past suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 19:46:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15613680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: Nathan Wesninski goes to therapy to cope with the mysterious disappearance of his wife and son.Hannibal Lecter employs an ethical Butcher. It's all very civilized.





	civil conversations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crownsandbirds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownsandbirds/gifts).



Nathan sat in the darkened waiting room comfortably, one ankle resting over his knee. He tapped on his leg with his fingers listlessly. Near the door Patrick stood like a small immovable mountain of muscle, not that Nathan thought much of anything would happen during his therapy appointment.

He was still armed under his suit, the knives in their sheaths, and the guns in their holsters. He wasn’t an idiot, and he wasn’t relaxing. The first time he’d been in the waiting room of the good doctor, he’d taken it all in with the clinical precision expected of his particular occupation – scanning for exits, potential antiques that could be used as a weapon, corners where a camera or listening device might be hidden. Now, he could comfortably take his time to appreciate the beauty of the practice’s set up.

It reeked of old money and class in a way that, even ten years ago would have aggravated his complexes. He waited politely for Dr. Lecter to wrap up his last appointment of the day and grace him with his attention. As usual, he was dressed in a suit that cost more than most people’s apartments, and he was smiling pleasantly.

“Mr. Wesninski.” he greeted warmly, and shook his hand, as always, in a strong warm grip, ushering him into his office.

“Patrick,” Nathan said, and waited for the other man to indicate he’d heard. He went to take a seat, temporarily relieved of his duty. Anyone who wanted to enter Dr. Lecter’s office while Nathan was in it would have to go through him first.

Nathan took a seat in one of the armchairs, and laced his fingers together in his lap to still his nervous tapping. Ichirou’s consistent brushes with death at his own hand had forced him to reexamine his own tenuous relationship with his psyche, and after a few discreet inquires, he’d settled on Dr. Lecter – he was well known in Baltimore – he and Nathan often shared the society pages, and they knew each other tangentially.

Now they sat in Lecter’s office, and Nathan was practicing his breathing in preparation of bringing up the one thing that could sent him into an apoplectic rage. Namely, Mary.

Hannibal really was a perfect professional about it – he didn’t push, and he waited for Nathan to bring it up at his own pace.

“You view the loss of your wife and son as a personal failure – an extension of your inadequacy as both father and husband,” Lecter observes mildly, when Nathan feeds him the broad strokes – not necessarily lying – Mary stole half his money, grabbed his kid, and ran. And he was man enough to admit that maybe his temper had something to do with the state of their marriage, and –

“Yes,” he said. it was easier to admit it than he’d thought. Because Mary and Nathaniel’s leaving was a personal failure. And he had paid for it dearly with the one thing he had never thought he’d survive losing – Kengo’s trust and respect.

“Do you blame yourself for their disappearance?” Hannibal asked.   
Nathan licked his lips. There was a reason he hadn’t brought this up before in therapy. But Ichirou was going to be Lord soon, and Ichirou didn’t want to have to hear anymore about the ex-wife of the man he was fucking. He had talked through the complicated mess he was feeling about Ichirou in his previous session.

“Yes,” he said again, careful this time. There was a limit to how much he could reveal, even if he and Hannibal respected each other.

“Why?”

The good doctor cocked his head to the side.

“They were part of a life that I built for myself,” Nathan said. “A life I wanted to have.”

“And now they have ruined the picture,” Hannibal added helpfully.

“Not ruined. They have… disrupted it.”

“Did you consider them part of your possessions?” Hannibal asked curiously. “You talked in previous sessions… about growing up poor. I wonder, if in the list you had constructed for your needs, you had perhaps included them as well – job, car, house, wife, child – all a part of an elaborate construct for who you want to be, and who you want to be perceived as.”

“And who do I want to be perceived as, Dr. Lecter?” Nathan challenged. He wasn’t supposed to get angry at his therapist for having insights into his pathology, but that is exactly what bothered him. Sometimes, the good doctor just saw too much.

“A good man,” Hannibal said, still mild, and almost-questioning. “An upstanding man. A man who helps struggling businesses and runs charities. The kind of man who would have a wife and son.”

“You think I want to be a good man?” Nathan could only just manage to not laugh.

“Don’t we all? I think you want to follow your own definition of what a good man is – an honorable man, a man who keeps his promises – this is how you talk about your relationship with your young man, is it not? You want to be the kind of man who is worthy.”

It was another sliver of truth – he did want to be worthy. Worthy of Kengo’s trust, and respect and money, worthy of Ichirou’s love, worthy of Riko’s blind childish adoration. He wanted to have been worthy of the fucking Oxford-educated heiress to the Hatford fortune and estates, he wanted Nathaniel to follow in his footsteps, wanted Nathaniel to be worthy to follow in his footsteps.

“And that leads back to your family,” Lecter continued. “You did not think you were worthy of them. So to distance yourself from that feeling, you instead forced them to become worthy of you, and punished where they failed to comply. You tried to repaint the picture.”

“And instead,” Nathan sighed.

“And instead, you ripped it.” Hannibal says. “The question is, Nathan, where would you like to go from here? In your relationship with your family, and in your therapy.”

“I want to move forward.” I want them both dead.

“And do you know what it would take for you to move forward?”

Lecter was studying him carefully. There was no hint of the cordial polite doctor. Behind his warm brown eyes there was a quiet nothingness, which Nathan answered with a blankly polite look of his own. They looked at each other across the room in Hannibal Lecter’s well-lit office, just two pleasant monsters.

“I think you should come to my house sometime,” said Nathan, changing the subject gracelessly, but he thought he could be forgiven in the occasion – he was, after all, extending Hannibal some social nicety. “It would be lovely to have you in my kitchen.”

“You would allow me to cook for you?” Hannibal asked. Nathan Wesninski had always hovered at the peripheries of his social circles – he was more close to the business magnates than their willfully unemployed wives and ambiguously homosexuals sons and cousins, but Hannibal knew… enough.

“It would be both a pleasure, and an honor,” Nathan said, and there was that charismatic smile again.

“Will your delightful young man be there?”

“If he is feeling up to company,” Nathan said ambiguously. Putting Ichirou in Lecter’s sights was perhaps… not something he was rushing to do. “Will yours?”

Hannibal smiled and shook his head. “I am afraid, Mr. Wesninski, that Will might see the picture of you a little too clearly.”

“Perhaps it is for the better.”

“Perhaps.”

Hannibal walked him to the waiting room, where Patrick was already standing. 


End file.
